TODAY IN HISTORY: FEBRUARY 29

 

February 29

 

1504 – Christopher Columbus uses his knowledge of a lunar eclipse that night to convince Jamaican natives to provide him with supplies.

1644 – Abel Tasman's second Pacific voyage begins as he leaves Batavia in command of three ships.

1704 – In Queen Anne's War, French forces and Native Americans stage a raid on Deerfield, Massachusetts Bay Colony, killing 56 villagers and taking more than 100 captive.

1712 – February 29 is followed by February 30 in Sweden, in a move to abolish the Swedish calendar for a return to the Julian calendar.

1720 – Ulrika Eleonora, Queen of Sweden abdicates in favour of her husband, who becomes King Frederick I on March 24.

1768 – Polish nobles form the Bar Confederation.

1796 – The Jay Treaty between the United States and Great Britain comes into force, facilitating ten years of peaceful trade between the two nations.

1892 – St. Petersburg, Florida is incorporated.

1912 – The Piedra Movediza (Moving Stone) of Tandil falls and breaks.

1916 – Tokelau is annexed by the United Kingdom.

1916 – In South Carolina, the minimum working age for factory, mill, and mine workers is raised from 12 to 14 years old.

1920 – The Czechoslovak National Assembly adopts the Constitution.

1936 – The February 26 Incident in Tokyo ends.

1940 – For her performance as Mammy in Gone with the Wind, Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African American to win an Academy Award.

1940 – Finland initiates Winter War peace negotiations.

1940 – In a ceremony held in Berkeley, California, physicist Ernest Lawrence receives the 1939 Nobel Prize in Physics from Sweden's consul general in San Francisco.

1944 – The Admiralty Islands are invaded in Operation Brewer, led by American general Douglas MacArthur, in World War II.

1960 – The 5.7 M_w  Agadir earthquake shakes coastal Morocco with a maximum perceived intensity of X (Extreme), destroying Agadir and leaving 12,000 dead and another 12,000 injured.

1972 – South Korea withdraws 11,000 of its 48,000 troops from Vietnam as part of Nixon's Vietnamization policy in the Vietnam War.

1980 – Gordie Howe of the Hartford Whalers makes NHL history as he scores his 800th goal.

1984 – Pierre Trudeau announces his retirement as Liberal Party leader and Prime Minister of Canada.

1988 – South African archbishop Desmond Tutu is arrested along with 100 other clergymen during a five-day anti-apartheid demonstration in Cape Town.

1988 – Svend Robinson becomes the first member of the House of Commons of Canada to come out as gay.

1992 – First day of Bosnia and Herzegovina independence referendum.

1996 – Faucett Flight 251 crashes in the Andes; all 123 passengers and crew are killed.

1996 – The Siege of Sarajevo officially ends.

2000 – Chechens attack a guard post near Ulus Kert, eventually killing 84 Russian paratroopers during the Second Chechen War.

2004 – Jean-Bertrand Aristide is removed as president of Haiti following a coup.

2008 – The United Kingdom's Ministry of Defence withdraws Prince Harry from a tour of Afghanistan after news of his deployment is leaked to foreign media.

2008 – Misha Defonseca admits to fabricating her memoir, Misha: A Mémoire of the Holocaust Years, in which she claims to have lived with a pack of wolves in the woods during the Holocaust.

2012 – North Korea agrees to suspend uranium enrichment and nuclear and long-range missile tests in return for US food aid.

2016 – At least 40 people are killed and 58 others wounded following a suicide bombing by ISIL at a Shi'ite funeral in the city of Miqdadiyah, Diyala.

2020 – Joe Biden wins the South Carolina primary election.

2020 – South Korea reports a record total of 3,150 confirmed cases of COVID-19 during the pandemic.

2020 – During a demonstration, pro-government colectivos shoot at disputed President and Speaker of the National Assembly Juan Guaidó and his supporters in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, leaving five injured.

2020 – The United States and the Taliban sign the Doha Agreement for bringing peace to Afghanistan.